Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Geek Arts & Crafts
YouTube - How to Increase Your Wi-Fi Signal
Does anyone know if this is for real?
Net Neutrality or DIE
The Death Of The Internet Video
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I'M Descended From These Apes
- Finally scientific proof why Neo-Cons are so crazy. Frequent sex decreases aggression even in the wild. The War is over if you want it to be!
- post by petedutro
NOVA | The Last Great Ape | PBS Annotated
Primatologist Frans de Waal on what the "make-love-not-war" primate tells us about ourselves
Monday, February 12, 2007
Damn Mr. Vice President! We told you not to press that button!
Leave a Good-Looking Corpse
That's what this is: the husk of a largely burned-out star, as photographed by the Spitzer Space Telescope (the Hubble's infrared-sensitive younger brother). Called the Helix Nebula, it lies about 700 light-years from space, and it's what our own solar system could look like in 5 billion years or so. What happens is that an aging Sun-like star blows off its outer layers in a kind of death rattle, creating an expanding cloud of gas. At the core is a white dwarf star--kind of a fiercely glowing leftover ember, still hot enough to heat the cloud and make it glow gorgeously.
The scientific importance here, largely overshadowed by the beauty of the image, is the reddish glow surrounding the white dwarf. It comes from dust, which would ordinarily have been blown away with the billowing gas cloud. This dust, though, was made after the blowoff: it comes from comets that survived that final gasp. Their orbits were disrupted enough during that even that they began crashing together, smashing each other to smithereens.
One historical note: the idea for the Hubble telescope originated with the late Princeton astronomer Lyman Spitzer, way back in 1947. When if was finally built, NASA named it, not after him, but after Edwin Hubble, who discovered the expanding universe in the 1920s. It wasn't until a new, infrared telescope went up in 2003 that Spitzer got the recognition he deserved.
One personal note: Spitzer was an avid mountaineer as well as an astrophysicist. He was officially reprimanded by the dean of Princeton's faculty for scaling the outside of Cleveland Tower, at Princeton's graduate college.
— M.L.
The Media Industry's Dirty Little Secret
Hi-Def the Gangster Move
Make Magazine just had an editorial High-Definition Equals Highly Deadly by Cory Doctorow (Make:08 Toys & Games Projects). In it Doctorow warns us of the impending doom of DRM. He points out how standard-def has been some what sloppy, in his words "fugly (NTSC:Never Twice Same Color!)", but has allowed us to implement "cheap and dirty displays". He rightly argues is the fact that compatibility has been the core of content innovation.
Since Gov. Bush sold of the airwaves
Porn studios quietly courted
As the opposing camps pushing the next generation of DVDs try to win audiences, they are furtively pursuing the affections of the multibillion-dollar porn industry.
click to enlargeSince the advent of home video, adult entertainment has played a key role in the adoption of new consumer technology. Porn companies, for instance, helped VHS trump Betamax in the '70s. More recently, they began streaming online video long before television networks.
So backers of the rival — and incompatible — HD DVD and Blu-ray formats are trying to entice porn producers to adopt their respective technologies. Even if they're not proud of it.
Last summer, a group pitching Blu-ray visited the Canoga Park offices of Wicked Pictures, whose films include "As Sleazy as 1-2-3" and "Womb Raiders." Wicked executive Jackie Ramos said the Blu-ray proponents spent hours explaining how the movie studio could benefit from releasing Blu-ray DVDs, which deliver dramatically higher picture quality than conventional discs.
But what amused Ramos was the warning that came after the presentation — "They said, 'We can help you, but remember: We were never here.' "
Versions of that message keep popping up as the backers of Blu-ray and HD DVD court the porn industry. Giants with a stake in the outcome include the likes of Microsoft Corp., Toshiba and Sony Corp.
The lengths to which they are going — and won't go — provide one way to measure the progress of the fiercest format war since VHS versus Betamax.
The porn industry has helped the HD DVD camp stay in the game despite support for Blu-ray from big electronics companies and Hollywood.
The battle is still young. Demand for the next-generation DVDs won't really take off until more people own televisions that can take advantage of the superior picture quality. And this month's introduction of an LG Electronics player that can handle either type of next-generation DVD — along with Warner Home Video's unveiling of a new hybrid "Total Hi Def" disc that holds both formats — suggests that the fight could last far longer than first predicted.
HD DVD, whose backers include Microsoft, Toshiba and General Electric Co.'s Universal Pictures, was out of the gate first. But since December, when Sony's PlayStation 3 and other devices that play Blu-ray movies began shipping in volume, Blu-ray disc sales have taken the lead.
Blu-ray has every major Hollywood studio except Universal (some are issuing in both formats). And with 710,000 PlayStation 3s and dedicated players sold through the end of the year, Blu-ray now has about four times as many homes to play in as HD DVD does.
But it is still too early to write off HD DVD, especially with inexpensive players due later this year from Chinese manufacturers, said Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research. "HD is going to beat Blu-ray to $300 and $200 — all the prices that start unlocking all the segments of population that will buy," he said.
With the race this close, it stands to reason that both sides are paying close attention to the porn kings of the San Fernando Valley. By some estimates, adult titles make up 10% or more of the $24-billion annual market in traditional DVDs.
Plus, anyone wondering who would most appreciate pictures that appear crisper than real life had only to witness a briefing at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month by LG Electronics, maker of the expensive players for either format. None of the presenter's points gripped the audience like the slow-motion HD DVD video of a model emerging from a swimming pool, every drop glistening as it fell from her white bikini.
Most U.S. porn producers are getting their feet wet with HD DVD.
During those hushed meetings with the producers, HD DVD and Blu-ray promoters insisted on secrecy as they touted the features of their respective formats. Each was sensitive to concerns specific to adult entertainment, such as how to edit out the surgical scars that would otherwise be far too visible.
But the HD DVD side went further, providing training and unofficially connecting the studios with the factories known as replicators, which stamp out discs from a master copy.
The porn industry is having trouble finding replicators to press Blu-ray DVDs.
HD DVD production methods are built on the old DVD standards, so the older machinery can be retooled to make the next-generation discs. But Blu-ray requires expensive new equipment. That's why there are only eight or so Blu-ray replicators in the world.
For Vivid Entertainment Group, the physical production of Blu-ray discs will come to about 35% of those movies' budgets, compared with 15% for HD DVDs and 10% for a standard DVD, said Vivid Chief Executive Steve Hirsch.
Even if a porn studio wants to pay extra for Blu-ray, Sony and Walt Disney Co. make it hard.
Sony manufactures Blu-ray discs but won't do it for adult titles. And Disney requires the replicators it uses to pledge not to use the same machines and employees to publish porn. Disney has its reasons: In the past, porn snippets have accidentally shown up on Disney titles. Neither company would comment for the record about porn.
Since Disney uses most of the biggest U.S. Blu-ray replicators, L.A.-based Vivid, the only adult producer to promise some Blu-ray discs, has been forced to range far afield.
"The Blu-ray people are making it very difficult for the adult guys," Hirsch said.
On the other hand, that may just be because they can afford to be difficult.
If HD DVD mounts a serious comeback, executives at two mainstream Blu-ray studios said, Sony and Disney will consider giving the porn makers a little more quiet help.
joseph.menn@latimes.com
dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com
Can You Say 1984?
Russert's fault? A lack of outrage
THOSE of us who get a kick out of watching Tim Russert every Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" are feeling a little hangdog these days. We always thought Big Russ Jr. was tough on the powerful. Now we learn that to some Washington media types on both the right and the left, he's just a tool for the powerful.
What's occasioned this perceptual turnabout is, of course, the perjury and obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, where Russert wrapped up two days of testimony last week. Libby says the NBC newsman fed him the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, who is at the center of the trial. Russert says he didn't.
To ordinary viewers, though, whatever transpired during Libby's phone call to Russert back in 2003 couldn't be as jarring as what the trial has unearthed about Washington's deeply cynical attitude toward "Meet the Press," a venerable, 60-year-old staple of network TV and the No. 1-rated Sunday news talk show.
A former Cheney press aide testified last month that she pushed to get the vice president on Russert's show to bat down negative news because it was "our best format," a program where political handlers can "control the message."
Just substitute Washington for Rome
Below is a passsage from Tom Holland's Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic. I thought it was a little chilling how, as Americans, we closely resemble this.
"...Provinces, it was assumed were burdensome to run. There were subtler ways of fleecing foreigners than by imposing direct rule on them. The Senate's preferred policy, practiced throughout the East, had always been to maintain a delicate balance between exploitation and disengagement. Now, it seemed, that the balance of power was in danger of being upset.
So, initially, the Senate- aside from colluding in Tiberius's murder- did nothing. Only when the kingdom's collapse into anarchy threatened the stability of the entire region was an army finally dispatched to Pergamum, and even the then it took several years of desultory campaigning before the Republic's new subjects were brought to heel. Still the Senate refrained from establishing Rome's first province in Asia. Instead, the commissioners sent to regulate the kingdom were carefully instructed to uphold the regulations of the kings they were replacing. As was invariably the Roman way, the emphasis lay on pretending that nothing much had changed.
So it was that a governing class that had been responsible for guiding its city to a position of power of unparalleled world power, bringing the entire Mediterranean under its effective control, and annihilating anyone who dared to oppose it, still clung to its instinctive isolationism. As far as Roman magistrates were concerned , abroad remained what it had always been: a field for the winning of glory. While plunder was never to be sniffed at, honor remained the truest measure of both a city and a man. By holding to this ideal, the members of the Roman aristocracy could reassure themselves that they remained true to the traditions of their rugged forefathers, even as they reveled in the sway of their command. As long as the effete monarchs of Asia sent their embassies crawling to learn the every whim of the Senate, as long as the desert nomads of Africa reined in their savagery at the merest frown of a legionary commander, as long as the wild barbarians of Gaul dreaded to challenge the unconquerable might of the Republic, then Rome was content. Respect was all the tribute she demanded and required.
But if the senatorial elite, confident already in their own wealth and status, could afford to believe this, then businessmen and financiers, to say nothing of the vast mass of poor, had very different ideas. The Romans had always associated the East with gold. Now, with the settlement of Pergamum, came the opportunity to start looting it systematically. Ironically, it was the Senate's insistence that the traditional Governance of Pergamum be respected that pointed the way."
Don't we still associate the East with gold, Black Gold!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Phillip k. Dick's future has arrived.
PV-TV: A Multifunctional, Eco-Friendly Building Material | Metropolis Magazine Annotated
As a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel, PV-TV can generate 3.8 watts of electricity per square foot, an above-average level of efficiency. Furthermore, unlike other PV systems, these panels are transparent and can be integrated into almost any part of a building without obscuring light or ruining the building’s aesthetic appearance, two downsides of conventional PV panels.
But PV-TV’s most unusual feature is its ability to act as a full-color internal and external screen. A picture or advertisement projected from inside a structure can be seen within that building, with PV-TV acting as a regular display screen. On the outside of the building, the material can function as a giant billboard.
When I was a kid someone told me that rain was God pissing.
The Robert Redford Building | Gadgetopia Annotated
Rain flushes toilets at Robert Redford building: This is almost anti-geek, but still very cool. There’s a lot of…technology (?) in this building. Well, maybe not technology, but a lot of thought went into building it.
The building’s exterior appears to be wood but is made of a fiber and cement material. Much of the interior is lit with skylights and solar cells that provide about a fifth of its energy. Cool sea breezes augment the air conditioning and special towers draw off heat.
The structure uses about 60 percent less water than most buildings because it captures rainwater from the roof, showers and sinks and uses it to water the plants and flush the low-flow toilets. The urinals use a special cartridge to funnel away wastewater.
That much thought to have…less technology? There’s a switch. I think we’ve come full circle — now we have to put massive amounts of effort into not using technology. Heaping amounts of technology and automation have become the default, and it’s news when someone does something eye-opening without resorting to it.
Urbanomics?
- definetly the solution for overcrowding
- post by petedutro
luigi colani : rotor house Annotated
Friday, February 9, 2007
Republicans have funny ideas about reality
Douglas J. Feith, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, sharply disputed the inspector general's conclusions in a series of interviews yesterday. "My office was trying to prevent an intelligence failure," Feith told National Public Radio. "We had people in the Pentagon who thought that the CIA's speculative assessments were not of top quality; they were not raising all the questions they should raise and considering all the information they should consider."
His office "did not present an alternative intelligence analysis," Feith said, it "presented a criticism."
By Paul Krugman of the NYTimes
published Feb 12 2007
Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake, even if all the allegations now being made about Iranian actions in Iraq are true.
But it wouldn’t be the first catastrophic mistake this administration has made, and there are indications that, at the very least, a powerful faction in the administration is spoiling for a fight.
Before we get to the apparent war-mongering, let’s talk about the basics. Are there people in Iran providing aid to factions in Iraq, factions that sometimes kill Americans as well as other Iraqis? Yes, probably. But you can say the same about Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be a major source of financial support for Sunni insurgents — and Sunnis, not Iranian-backed Shiites, are still responsible for most American combat deaths.
The Bush administration, however, with its close personal and financial ties to the Saudis, has always downplayed Saudi connections to America’s enemies. Iran, on the other hand, which had no connection to 9/11, and was actually quite helpful to the United States in the months after the terrorist attack, somehow found itself linked with its bitter enemy Saddam Hussein as part of the “axis of evil.”
So the administration has always had it in for the Iranian regime. Now, let’s do an O. J. Simpson: if you were determined to start a war with Iran, how would you do it?
First, you’d set up a special intelligence unit to cook up rationales for war. A good model would be the Pentagon’s now-infamous Office of Special Plans, led by Abram Shulsky, that helped sell the Iraq war with false claims about links to Al Qaeda.
Sure enough, last year Donald Rumsfeld set up a new “Iranian directorate” inside the Pentagon’s policy shop. And last September Warren Strobel and John Walcott of McClatchy Newspapers — who were among the few journalists to warn that the administration was hyping evidence on Iraqi W.M.D. — reported that “current and former officials said the Pentagon’s Iranian directorate has been headed by Abram Shulsky.”
Next, you’d go for a repeat of the highly successful strategy by which scare stories about the Iraqi threat were disseminated to the public.
This time, however, the assertions wouldn’t be about W.M.D.; they’d be that Iranian actions are endangering U.S. forces in Iraq. Why? Because there’s no way Congress will approve another war resolution. But if you can claim that Iran is doing evil in Iraq, you can assert that you don’t need authorization to attack — that Congress has already empowered the administration to do whatever is necessary to stabilize Iraq. And by the time the lawyers are finished arguing — well, the war would be in full swing.
Finally, you’d build up forces in the area, both to prepare for the strike and, if necessary, to provoke a casus belli. There’s precedent for the idea of provocation: in a January 2003 meeting with Prime Minster Tony Blair, The New York Times reported last year, President Bush “talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire.”
In the end, Mr. Bush decided that he didn’t need a confrontation to start that particular war. But war with Iran is a harder sell, so sending several aircraft carrier groups into the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf, where a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident could all too easily happen, might be just the thing.
O.K., I hope I’m worrying too much. Those carrier groups could be going to the Persian Gulf just as a warning.
But you have to wonder about the other stuff. Why would the Pentagon put someone who got everything wrong on Iraq in charge of intelligence on Iran? Why wasn’t any official willing to take personal responsibility for the reliability of alleged evidence of Iranian mischief, as opposed to being an anonymous source? If the evidence is solid enough to bear close scrutiny, why were all cameras and recording devices, including cellphones, banned from yesterday’s Baghdad briefing?
It’s still hard to believe that they’re really planning to attack Iran, when it’s so obvious that another war would be a recipe for even bigger disaster. But remember who’s calling the shots: Dick Cheney thinks we’ve had “enormous successes” in Iraq.
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR.
Watch Bush Do His Famous Song And Dance
Below is a link to a NYTimes.com video of Bush still trying to make his case for a bigger war that would include Iran, a.k.a Persia.
Deja Vu?
-Wikipedia: The ancient Romans
It always astounds me how much we can learn from the past while we still insist to ourselves that modern times are unique and that this time it is different. Many people call this insanity as defined in the dictionary. I call it stupidity, shortsightedness, greed, and ignorance among other things.
It's all about the Meritocracy
Being unknowing, is not the same as being stupid.
Expressing a contrary opinion, whether to the individual or the group, is more often a sign of deeper thought than of cantankerous belligerence.
Do not mistake your goals as the only goals; your opinion as the only opinion; your confidence as correctness. Saying you know better is not the same as explaining you know better.